Whether the Weather round + rhythm creativity FREE DOWNLOADS

I love "Whether the Weather" because you can do SO many things with this song. This year, my 2nd graders used this song to...

• experience and move to triple meter
• sing a tonic ostinato + the song for the first time
• sing in a round for the first time
• play Orff instruments with the song (using the notes D and A in various patterns and borduns)
• create, individually, their own short patterns using D and A on the instruments
• create, in groups, their own ostinati chants using weather words and the cards below
• perform the song and their ostinati in a rondo form

My AWESOME mentor teacher even used this song in a concert with singing and Orff instruments. So many possibilities.... :)

Here is the song:

Using the rhythm cards below, the class first read the rhythms using DU-DA-DI syllables and then saying the words in rhythm.

Then students broke into their small groups (4-5 students per group) and I handed each group a set of cards, with 2 of each of the cards below.

The groups created their own arrangement of 4 of the cards to create a 4-measure chant: for example, "Rain, Tornado, Hurricane, Rain."  Groups practiced their own chant in rhythm on its own, and as an ostinato chanting it as the rest of the class sang the song.

For the grand finale, the whole class performed a Weather Rondo!  The form went like this:

• A section: All students sing "Whether the Weather" 
• B section: Group 1 perform their 4-measure chant 
• A section: All students sing "Whether the Weather"
• C section: Group 2 perform their 4-measure chant
• A section: All students sing "Whether the Weather"
• etc.!

Images of the rhythm cards used in the activity (download the cards at the bottom of this post!):

And, last but not least, the lyrics with pictures:

Download the weather rhythm cards for free here.
Download the lyrics (with pictures) to "Whether the Weather" here.
Download the sheet music to "Whether the Weather" on Noteflight here.